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Top Ten Mistakes to Avoid When Writing Email
By Karen Leland and Keith Bailey
As more and more people are writing emails to supplement traditional forms of business communication, an established etiquette is required to help insure that good manners are the rule, rather than the exception in cyberspace.
The simplest way of checking your email before you send it is to ask yourself, "How would I feel if I received this message?" As with letter writing, writing email correspondence is subject to misinterpretation since there is no tone of voice or body language for the reader to take cues from. With email one hundred percent of the tone comes from the words you use and how you use them. Below are the ten most common mistakes that are made when writing emails, and their solutions:
Mistake 1: Thinking e-mail is good for everything
Don't let convenience blind you, sensitive issues, confidential
information, provocative subjects and areas of conflict are
just a few of the messages that should be off-limits to email
and dealt with via phone or face-to-face.
Mistake 2: Not writing e-mail from the reader's perspective
Could your message be misinterpreted? Could an innocent tongue-in-cheek
remark be misconstrued? Re-read all your e-mails and become
sensitive to their "tone" and how readers might
interpret them.
Mistake 3: Forgetting about the importance of etiquette
It's always a good idea, no matter how rushed you are, to
create a positive impression by using an opening and closing
(for example, Dear Mr. Smith or Regards, Joe Black), correcting
sloppy grammar and spelling, using a clear and descriptive
subject line, and not using jargon and abbreviations that
might mystify the reader.
Mistake 4: CCing
the world
Often, people courtesy copy (cc) others as a means of cyber-gossip
or to vent their frustrations. This leads not only to traffic
jams in others' in-boxes, but in the worst case, defamation,
and in the best case, hurt feelings. When writing e-mail,
only cc those parties that are directly related to the situation
or email message.
Mistake 5: Believing that
an erased e-mail is gone forever
Even if you delete an e-mail message from your in-box, it
is retrievable from the company's system, the recipient's
computer, or from the recipient's company's network. With
technical know how, e-mails can even be retrieved from your
computer's hard drive. Learn to think of e-mail documents
as permanent.
Mistake 6: Viewing instant messages
as less 'formal' than e-mail
The nature of IM or chat is similar to a conversation where
both parties are responding to one another in real time. Living
up to their name, IMs happen in the moment and, unlike e-mail,
they are reactive. The next thing you type depends on the
message you receive. With their rapid-fire speed it's easy
to forego discipline and make silly mistakes - such as making
assumptions that have little or no facts behind them, promises
that can't be fulfilled or disclosing private company information.
Mistake 7: Assuming people have time to read your entire
message
To be most effective, whenever possible, e-mail messages should
contain all the most pertinent and important data in the first
paragraph. Most of us have a short attention span when reading
from a computer screen and if we think we know where the message
is going, it's easy to save time and move onto the next message
without having read the nugget of information buried in the
last paragraph.
Mistake 8: Mismatching the sender's tone
One of the toughest aspects of writing e-mail is developing
a feeling of rapport - especially if you don't know the person
with whom you are corresponding. Writers with a formal, no-nonsense
style usually like a similar response. For others who take
a more chatty and expressive approach to their emails, respond
in kind.
Mistake 9: Lack of a clear request
You know how frustrating it can be to read and reread an e-mail
and not know what the sender really wants, "Is it an
FYI or do I need to do something?" Email senders take
note; specific requests are essential in email. Make sure
yours are clearly defined, have a timeframe attached to them
and include any necessary background information. If your
email isn't a request label it an FYI.
Mistake
10: Not re-reading before you hit 'send'
As any contractor knows the rule is "measure twice, cut
once." By reading your e-mail over before you send it
you can catch and correct all sorts of mistakes before they
get to the recipient and possibly create a bad impression
or put you and/or your company in hot water.
 Karen Leland and Keith Bailey are the authors of Customer Service for Dummies, as well as Essential Email: A Training Program for Online Excellence. Learn more about the live email training or the
computer-based training.
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